The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke
layman a good clerk, To one unknown it gives a mark, Ale makes the strong go on all fours, And fill the streets with shouts and roars. The good ale from the malt at length, So draws the barley’s pride and strength, That a royster’s figure-head Needs no dye to make it red. Here, then, let the matter rest, To talk of other things were best.
As everybody knows, the monks of old were famous for their home-brewed ales, and the brewer and cellarer, whether in mitred abbey or in the less distinguished religious houses, were officials of considerable importance. The office of cellarer was one held in especial estimation. An old glossary describes his position in the monastery as follows:—“Pater debet esse totius congregationis,” and in the priory of St. Swithin at Winchester special prayers were offered up for this functionary. Such a person is depicted on this page. The monk whose anxious eye proclaims the sad fact that in tasting the liquor entrusted to his charge he is exceeding his duty, is a cellarer who evidently makes the most of his opportunities. The drawing is taken from a manuscript in the Arundel collection.
25 i.e., you must rise betimes.
26 The word “couch” has still a technical meaning in malting.
“Is it in condition?”
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Mediæval Cellarer.
Some curious entries relating to home-brew are to be found in the registry of the priory of Worcester, A.D. 1240. At each brewing “VIII. cronn: de greu and x quarteria de meis” were used; which probably signifies eight cronns or four quarters of growte (here meaning ground malt), and ten quarters of mixed barley and oat malt. A long list then follows of the allowances of beer amongst the different officials of the house. The beer was of three different kinds, prima or melior, secunda, and tertia. The cellarer is to have one measure of prime and one of second. In the brewhouse four measures of the prime are to be distributed, and two measures on the day on which the ale is to be moved. The servant of the church is to have the holy-water bucket full of “mixta,” i.e., part prime and part second, or, it may be, a mixture of all three sorts. This “mixta” seems to have been an anticipation of the “half-and-half” and “three threads” of more modern times. Each of those who help to carry the ale are to have two measures of the first and second mixed, and so the list proceeds through all the officers and servants of the priory. Ale, indeed, seems to have been their chief drink, and even the invalid (potionandus) about to undergo a course of physicking was allowed his measure of ale. Our doubts as to the wisdom of this dieting hardly require the confirmation they receive from the further direction that he was to have pork, fowl with stuffing, cheese, and eggs.
Sometimes the records tell sad tales of the poor monks being robbed of their beer by reason of the malt failing.
This misfortune is recorded in the annals of Dunstable as having happened in 1262. The annalist ruefully mentions that “in this year, about the Feast of John the Baptist, our ale failed.” Very soon after this, however, they made provision for the deficiency by purchasing from H. Chadde £20 worth of malt; the quantity is not mentioned, but at the rates of the day it would no doubt considerably exceed 100 quarters, so that for some time the monks could have known no want. In 1274 the same disaster occurred:—“At the Feast of Pentecost our malt failed.” This time the holy fathers were equal to the occasion. “We drank,” so run the annals, “five casks of wine, and it did us much good.” {52}
The crimes and misdeeds of Roger Noreys, the wicked abbot of Evesham at the end of the twelfth century, seem to have culminated when he not only called the monks “puppies, vassals, and ribalds,” but, adding injury to insult, compelled them to live for many days on hard bread and “ale little differing from water.” This was too much, and the monks petitioned the archbishop against such ill-treatment. The abbot, it may be remarked, appears from the records of the House to have taken very good care of himself, though he treated the monks so ill, and it might have been said of him as it was of another ecclesiastic whose name, unfortunately, has not accompanied the verse:—
Bonum vinum cum sapore Bibit abbas cum priore Sed conventus de pejore Semper solet bibere.
John of Brokehampton, who became abbot of Evesham in 1282, had himself filled the office of cellarer, and amongst many other benefits conferred by him upon the House during his abbacy, he built a bakehouse and a brewhouse “not only strongly but sumptuously.”
On certain special days set apart for “doing the great O,”27 which was a facetious way of saying that they were holidays when nothing was done, a more liberal allowance of ale was made, and on the occasion of the election of a Canon for St. Paul’s, foreign wine and other delicacies were added to the feast.
27 “Facere O” in some places had reference to the introit beginning “O Sapientia.”
Some slight idea of a monastic feast in the thirteenth century may be gathered from the accompanying illustration. The presence of women is significant, and the quaint spit, and the round-bottomed glass which one of the monks holds in his hand and which cannot be set down until empty, are noteworthy.
What a gentleman’s cellar ought to contain is thus described by Alexander Neckam, a twelfth-century writer:—“In promptuario sive in celario,” he writes, “sunt cadi, utres,28 dolea, ciphi,29 cophini, … vina, scicera, cerevicia, sive celia, mustum, claretum, nectar,30 medo {53} sive ydromellum,31
piretum, vinum rosetum, vinum feretum, vinum falernum, vinum girofilatum.” Some old scribe has noted this work in the same way as the annotator of the Treatise of Walter de Biblesworth, and taking up the hints he has given, the passage may be translated:—“In the cellar are barrels, leather bottles or wine skins, tuns, beakers, baskets, … wines, cyder, ale, new wine, claret, piment, meed or ydromellum, perry, Mount Rose wine, Falernian, garihofilac, &c. …” Not a bad assortment of liquors for an Early Englishman! Our cut, taken from the Roxburghe ballads, represents a well-stocked cellar of the olden times.
28 Utres is noted ‘coutreus.’
29 Ciphi = anaps, cophini = anapers. On this word anaps, or hanaps, see page 395.
30 Nectar or Piment was a luscious kind of drink compounded of wine, honey and spices; it was called after the pigmentarii, or apothecaries who prepared it, and was in fact a liqueur.
31 Ydromellum is explained in the Ortus as potus ex aqua et melle, Anglice mede or growte (Growte = wort in an early stage of the brewing). In Alfric’s Colloquy, however, it is said to be beor, or mulsum. The true explanation of this discrepancy seems to be that ydromellum, while properly signifying an inferior sort of mead, was also used by analogy to denote the sweet liquor wort.